Wednesday, 8 May 2013

1912-05-11

George
H. Mills, who was mayor of the city of Hamilton in the year 1858, during his
leisure hours in the closing years of his life prepared quite an interesting
account of the growth and affairs of the city from that period down to 1886,
which is valuable in a historical way. The book is now the property of Stanley
Mills, to whom the Muser is indebted for a perusal of it. George H. Mills was a
descendant of John Mills, a native Scotchman, who emigrated to the United
States and settled on Staten Island, New York, about the middle of the
eighteenth century. His father was born in Newark, New Jersey, in the year
1774. The family, being attached to the British crown, and not in sympathy with
the spirit of the American revolution, they emigrated to Canada in 1793. James
Mills, the U. E. Loyalist, was the father of George H. Mills, and was entitled
to 200 acres of land, which he never got. He began life as a trader among the
Indians, trading goods for raw furs, and the furs he shipped back to Newark,
where he sold them. In 1800, he decided to settle in this locality, then called
the Head of the Lake, and engaged in various occupations. He was a man
possessed of far more than ordinary intelligence and education, and was frequently
employed I settling differences between neighbors, preparing deeds of land and
other contracts requiring a knowledge of the law. In 1803, he united in
marriage to Christina Hesse, a sister of Peter Hesse, after whom Hess street
was called. In 1816, James Mills bought 200 acres of land in the west end of
the city, for which he paid two dollars an acre, of which he sold the east 100
to Peter Hesse. It was on that farm, now the west end of Hamilton that George
H. Mills, the future mayor was born. One of his early teachers was Patrick
Thornton, a Scotchman, who taught a private school, there being no public
schools in those days. For a time he was a student in Victoria college, and
afterward became a pupil of Rev. Dean Geddes in 1842, who pieced out his salary
as a minister by teaching a select school during the week. There were no $3,000
and $4,000 pupils in Hamilton in those days; indeed, the ministers thought they
were living in the lap of luxury if they were paid as high as $400 a year.
George H. Mills was one of those fortunate, or unfortunate, young men who was
not compelled to put forth any energy to make a living, for by the time he
became of age, the old home farm became valuable as town lots, and the Mills
coffers were overflowing with gold. When town lots got as high as $5 a foot
front in Hamilton in the old days, the owners of farms began to subdivide them
and turn them into money. Today the western city limits lie far beyond the
Mills farm, and lots halfway out to Dundas are booming at $30 to $50 a foot.
The story is told of a man who owned a farm out on the Dundas road who was
approached by a couple of strangers not long ago, and asked to put a price on
his farm of 100 acres or more. The owner thought he would stagger the strangers
by asking a still price, and said he would sell for $75,000. Not another word
was said by the strangers, but one of them pulled a roll of bills from his
pocket, and counted out $1,000, which he tendered to bind the bargain. “Those
strangers are dead easy,” thought the farmer, and after he had signed a
contract to sell the land, he began to think there must be something behind all
this. When George H. Mills was a boy, the owner of that same farm would have
considered himself if he could have sold it at $10 an acre. There is lots of
cheap land in Canada yet, but it is now within the sound of Hamilton’s church
bells.

On the 13th day of March, 1855,
George H. Mills went out to Waukegan, Illinois, and married a western Yankee
girl, and after thirty years of wedded life, he paid this beautiful tribute to
the mother of his children : “For thirty-one years, we have lived together,
sharing joys, hopes, and sorrows. You have the best of mothers. She has
faithfully and tendered watched over you in sickness, and in health she has,
almost single-handed, shaped your lives: and if you have become respected
members; and if you have become respected members of society, to her, far more
than anybody else, you are indebted for your preparation and early training to
fit you for the position.” In 1857, like Teddy Roosevelt, Mr. Mills shied his
hat into the political ring, and offered himself as candidate for alderman in
St. George’s ward. J. D. Pringle, a prominent barrister, being his opponent.
Adam Brown, our genial postmaster, was a younger man then than he is now, and
although he and Mr. Mills were warm, personal friends, Mr. Brown gave his
influence to Mr. Pringle. The contest was hot and close, but Mr. Mills came out
ahead by a very small majority. Evidently he was a man of ideas and he had the
force of character to convince others to his way of thinking. At that time our
present beautiful Gore park was a mud hole and the dumping ground for the
refuse from the stores on King street fronting it. The old stagers will
remember the ancient Gore, with the town pump on a high platform facing James
street. This old Muser is not going to throw any stones at the old Gore, nor at
the old pump, for the pump played an important part in the comfort of the old
stagers during the cholera season in 1854. When nearly all of the wells in
Hamilton were thought to be polluted from the back yard connections to the
houses, and people were afraid to drink the water without boiling, that the old
pump furnished pure, cool water and quenched the thirsts of thousands everyday.
People would walk a long distance in the evening in the evening for a drink
before retiring for the night. There should be a tablet erected to the memory
of the old pump at the west end of the Gore.

During George H. Mills first term as
alderman, he made the improvement of the Gore his special care and study, and
in the council and in the newspapers, he advocated the planting of trees and
the filling up of the mud hole, and by constant hammering at his hobby, he
finally got a majority of the council to his way of thinking. There was a
strong sentiment in favor of building an arcade on the strip, renting the lower
floor to small shopkeepers and the upper stories for offices, and occupying a
part of it for city hall purposes. Hamilton had at that time a number of
leading men who worshiped at the shrine of the almighty dollar and the
possible revenue that might be deprived from an arcade appealed more to the
practical side than a square of grass and trees in the business part of the
city. The result of Mr. Mills’ advocacyof trees, grass and flowers is to be seen today in the beautiful park
between James and Hughson streets. To another alderman in later years is due
the credit of the extension of the park down to John street. Fifteen years ago,
this strip was about as filthy and disreputable-looking as almost any alley in
the city – and to the discredit of Hamilton the alleys within one block of King
street are as foul-smelling as they were half a century ago when there was no
money to clean them up. William Findlay was a progressive alderman fifteen
years ago, and had something to do with the public works, probably chairman of
the committee, and that strip was not only an eyesore to him, but to every
business man on both sides of the street. The cabmen occupied it as a stand,
and it was a filthy sight in the center of an ambitious city. Ald. Findlay had
a hard fight to get the consent of council to change the cab stand into a
beautiful park, but he finally succeeded, and today, there is not a city in
Canada or anywhere else that can show such a handsome picture. The present
generation of aldermen and controllers are not quite so esthetic in their
tastes, for instead of adding to the beauties of the Gore parks, they are going
to burrow underneath and build a retreat for benchers in the park.

The dark days of 1857 not only overshadowed Canada,
but closed up the factories and workshops in the United States. Those were the
days of wildcat currency, when a bank note that was worth a dollar at night was
not worth a cent in the morning. There was no stability to the banks as we have
them now, when every dollar note is worth its face value in gold. Canada and
the United States were buying everything they needed from foreign countries,
and the money that should be kept at home to give employment to our own
citizens was sent away to enrich labor in foreign countries. But we are not
going to discuss the protective tariff in these musings. Hamilton’s worst black
eye was received in 1858, when thousands of young men had to leave home and
seek employment elsewhere. Mr. Mills refers to those days in the sketch we have
at command. That man by acclamation, for his constituents approved of his
progressive ideas. In those days the mayor of the city was selected by the
board of aldermen from among their own number, and Mr. Mills was accorded the
honor of election. The year 1858 will long be remembered by the old stagers as one
of the most trying on account of commercial depression, that Canada ever
experienced, not even excepting the dark and calamitous year of 1849, when many
leading men could see no way out of the prevailing depression but annexation to
the United States. Previous to 1858, many public works, railways and canals had
been in progress, large armies of men being employed and large sums of money
expended. Hamilton was then in the midst of its construction of the waterworks
system, and owing to the scarcity of money and the abundance of labor
unemployed, the contractors could get labor at any price, men working in the
trenches as low as fifty cents a day, and glad to get work even at that. All of
the public works in the provinces were substantially abandoned, and the men who
were thrown out of work crowded into the cities. These people had not been
provident while receiving good pay for their work, and the approach of winter
found them nearly destitute. Men were glad to get work even on half time, and
this old Muser can well remember that for long weeks he was glad to get
employment on half time, setting long primer and brevier at 27 cents per
thousand. Funds were low in the city’s treasury, and pressing applications for
relief daily increased till the close of the year. Many days during the month
of December, the city hall was besieged by strong men begging for work, asking
for food, clamoring for some kind of municipal measures that might better their
condition. Some days the number of applicants for relief reached as high as
three hundred. It was a critical and serious time. The few factories and
workshops we had in Hamilton were substantially shut down, and those in
operation employed their men on half time. The city council opened a number of
new streets to furnish labor, the number of applicants far exceeding the
demand, especially as money was scarce in the city treasury. In order to divide
up the labor among so many, lots were drawn and those who were fortunate enough
to draw a lucky number were given three days work at a time at fifty cents a
day. In this employment was furnished to the most needy. The opening of new
streets and the construction of the waterworks system about furnished enough
work to keep body and soul together. It is different today in Hamilton when men
are getting fifty cents an hour instead of fifty cents a day as they did
fifty-five years ago. While the men were clamoring for work in 1858 to keep their
families from want, the corridors of the city hall were crowded with women and
children besieging the mayor for help. In order to satisfy himself that the
real needy ones should not suffer, Mayor Mills, accompanied by Donald Dawson, a
city policeman, visited the homes of the people, and tyhis opened his eyes to
the misery that was present. With what relief money that could be spared from
the city funds, and such aid as the benevolent societies could render, no one
was permitted to suffer for bread. Unfortunately, there was a classin the city who traded on the general misfortunes
by asking and receiving aid when they were not really in need. At some of the
houses visited by the mayor and Donald Dawson, they found families that had
been making the poorest mouths, well-supplied with provisions, and many of them
had money in the savings bank. Donald made a record of them, and henceforth
they wisely kept away from the city hall. So heartsick and wearied was Mr.
Mills with his official duties that at the end of the year, he declined to be a
candidate for re-election.

Happily for Hamilton, the tide of prosperity
turned in its favor when the civil war in the United States began, for when the
American boys left the workshops for the tented field, a demand for labor
sprung up and thousands of Canadiansleft their homes and crossed the border to fill the vacancies in the
workshops. During the war over 50,000 Canadians became enthused with the war
spirit, and they in turn left the workshops to shoulder arms for Uncle Sam. In
1858, Hamilton had a population of between 15,000 and 20,000, today it is
nearing 85,000. Fifty-five years ago, there were but few workshops or factories
in the town; today there are nearly 400 industrial establishments, giving
employment to no less than 25,000 men and women. More than $13,000,000 are paid
out yearly in wages, and the factories are turning out products that are valued
at $45,000,000. These be the growing days for Hamilton when 25 feet frontage on
King street sells for $100,000, that the owner of it thirteen years ago was
glad to sell for $28,000. A big Toronto firm has been watching the growth, and
now comes into the game, buying nearly a whole block in the heart of the city,
three blocks from King street, and one from James street, for the purposes of
erecting a large department store and workshops to supply its trade. The Head
of the Lake is coming into its own even though it took a hundred years for
Canada and the United States to find out its great advantages as an industrial
center. Hereafter no Torontonian will dare belittle the mountain by calling it
a hill; nor will the good women of Hamilton be running off to Toronto during
the summer months to buy cheap goods that will cost them more than a better
quality can be bought in the home stores. The past belongs to the old stagers,
who planned and builded wisely; the future is a story yet to be told by some
Muser that is to come.